Birthday Link-Fest

It's that time of year again. Time to shop for your favorite forty-something fiberista (Apparently I'm all about the alliteration.) So here's a list of links to stuff I covet. So as to make the shopping easier on you all.

I love Etsy! Here are some of my favorite vendors:

KBShimmer One of my favorite indugences recently has been hand made soap. I am seriously lusting after some of these soaps (love the kaliedo-soap! And Caravan!)
Sparta Soap More handmade soap. I've bought from this seller, and was very happy. This is a local seller, too.

Fiber:
Dicentra
Jazz Turtle (love those batts)
Enchanted Knoll Love the sparkly batts and rovings (I've been looking out for Gold Dust Woman.)
TerraBellaSpun More batts
Butterfly Girl Designs Batts and spindles.
Zebisis Designs More batts and spindles.

Another recent find was varietal honey. I bought some from Bee Folks when I was in Maryland, and loved it! One of my fave "little indugences" is an afternoon cup of herbal tea with honey at work. (But I didn't care for killer bee honey.)

Knitterly Things is a favorite. I love all of Julia's fiber and yarn. (And it's really nice to get stuff from someone I know!)

Also, Amy King, aka Spunky Eclectic has a New Book (buy it from Amy at the link and she'll autograph it!) that I really want. And you know, you could order up some Custom Dyed Fiber while you're there. (For the uninitiated, choose the fiber here then state what colorway you want when you place the order. Yeah, I think it's a little clunky too, but I didn't design the website.)

A gift certificate to Bloomin Yarns wouldn't go amiss either.

A yogurt cheese maker. Homemade paneer! Yum!

And an an immersion blender. Soups and smoothies, here I come!

Whew! Enough choices for you all? I may update with more later.

TdF Day Two

I wound off the bobbin from yesterday (this wheel has only one bobbin) and started spinning a fresh bobbin of the same fiber for today's installment of the Tour de Fleece. I split my 8 oz. of fiber into two lots and will put each one on a bobbin (the bobbin will hold 4 oz of fiber). The plan is to mix and match the six lots while plying to get a more even distribution of singles.

My other TdF project at the moment is this spindle project with some wool from a vendor I can't remember at MDS&W. They're in one of the barns at the very end closest to the sheep barns, and they have lots of baskets of loose fiber in lots of colors stacked up on the walls. Anyone?

Here's a picture of the whole lot of this fiber, -- I think I have 2 and a half pounds of it or so. It's a wool/mohair mix maybe 50/50? I should have enough of this to make a sweater for myself, if I ever get it all spun up. The spindle is a Bosworth in tulipwood.

TdF - Day One

ONE of my projects for TdF is to spin up this fiber:
purchased at MDS&W in 2006. I had 1.5 lbs of it, and this
is the end of the first 8 oz. I'll start the second today. I also spun some of the blue fiber I bought at the same time on the spindle I bought then too. (It's like a MDS&W 2006 reunion.) Actually, that's just the stash bin I happened to open. Yeah, my stash is stratified by years, so what? Anyways, this yarn is destined to become a 3 ply which I will knit into either a sweater or vest, depending on yardage.

It's Been a Hard Day's Night

::sigh:: I'm not asking for life to be easy, just a little less hard. I ended up crying at my desk this afternoon at work. Not fun. Not much knitting going on. I forgot, until I downloaded the pictures from my camera that I'd met Ysolda Teague at Bloomin Yarns. She was very nice and charming and now I want to get all her patterns. As soon as I have some money I'm ordering Otto, Elijah, and Sophie. They were unbelievably cute in person. (Birthday alert! These patterns would make great gifts!)
Then at knitting last Friday Terri brought these cute balls stuffed with lavender -- they're for her mom who can't see very well, but she can hold them and feel the nice squishy wool and smell the lavender. What a great idea! I might make some for my dad, who has to exercise his hands for his OT.
And I also taught Janice to spin with a hand spindle. She was going like gangbusters using the park and draft method. Fiber by Spunky Eclectic in the colorway "Eclipse" -- it was a club color last summer. Romney, so super easy for a beginner to learn on.

And finally here's my Brown Penny. I've got the sleeves done. Mods to the pattern so far are longer sleeves, more room in the bust, some short rows for the girls, and some waist shaping. I'm hoping to finish this in the next week or so. Hopefully it fits. (It looks big, but I could just be underestimating my size, which I do frequently. I can always rip and re-knit.)

Tentatively Hopeful

I did hear back from the VA today and the man said that they have approved my dad's claim! So complaining and stressing out about things really does work! I'm not going to totally believe it (or stop gathering medical evidence) until I see something in writing, but I am tentatively hopeful that this is going to work out alright. I must have sounded sufficiently frantic on the phone yesterday. (I always try to remember how I sounded for future reference, but it never works.) They called me today when I was with my dad so I was able to share the news with him right away. I still have a couple of cards up my sleeve, though, including Dave talking to our State Legislator about it (Dave serves on the church board with him). So I'm less stressed today, and I got to visit Heather too because my work was cancelled due to the severe storms yesterday. I was even destressed enough to knit a little (I hadn't felt up to it for the past couple of days). Hopefully pics tomorrow in the daylight (I'm knitting short rows to give the girls a little extra room).

New -- With Tornadic Activity!

We had some wild weather here in the 'Burgh this evening. It started out with just lots of lightening and thunder. Older Son and I sat out on the front porch and watched it. Then all the local emergency vehicles came screaming down our street and turned at our corner. Except for this big rig, which parked in front of our house for about 20 minutes. OS scampered up the street to see what was on fire (nothing this time -- but there was a fire up there somewhere yesterday) and came back to report that he thought it might be a downed tree or something and that it was really tight space-wise so he thought there just wasn't room for this truck. Eventually this and the other emergency vehicles all left. I was too shy to ask a fireman to hold a sock for me.

On a personal note I'm strangling in red tape. My dad was denied his VA benefit for Aid and Assistance (Geez, he can't feed himself, bathe himself, dress himself, or go to the bathroom unassisted. What do they think constitutes requiring Aid and Assistance??) The letter I got says that he has to be examined at the local Veteran's Affairs facility. Now, I had gotten a call from them a month ago (coincidentally on the day my dad fell and broke his hip) wanting to schedule an exam. I called them back and told them they could do any kind of exam they wanted, but they would have to come to him seeing as how he was in the hospital. They told me it wasn't necessary. Yesterday I got a letter saying that his request had been denied because the medical records didn't substantiate his claim (I'm also suspicious that either the doctor's office or the nursing facility he was in didn't send the records they said they did -- but the VA won't tell me what they have or don't have. Double ARRGH!). So I called them back. The conversation went like this:
Me: I got this letter denying my dad's claim, they say that he has to be examined at your facility.
VA Person: Yes, I see that we spoke on May 18th, and he broke his hip. You don't need to come in.
Me: You don't understand. I got this letter (reads letter) yesterday saying that his claim is denied unless it is substantiated by an exam from you.
VA Person: Well, he can make the claim based on the medical records...But wait, you're saying that the claim was denied with those...
Me: Yes. I need to know when the exam will be scheduled because I have to arrange a wheelchair transport and if the exam is going to require him to get out of the wheelchair you'll have to have someone there to get him in and out of it because I can't lift him.
VA Person: This sounds like it's a hardship...I don't think you need to come in.
Me (frantic): Well, if this is the only way to get this claim approved I'll get him there. I'll do whatever it takes.
VA Person: Well, I don't know what to do...I have to talk to my supervisor and get back to you.
ARRGH!! Needless to say she didn't call me back. I'm frantic. The expense of keeping him in the assisted living facility he's in is just over $1000 a month more than his monthly income. And guess who's on the hook for it all? The facility has been willing to wait for their money until his claim was processed, but what happens if it's denied? I feel like I was taken for a ride by the nursing facility who told me he "had" to go to an assisted living facility, and the director of the personal care home he's in, both of whom told me that there would be "no problem" with him getting this benefit. I can't take him out of the facility because as soon as he leaves that means he'll never get reimbursed for the money he's out so far. (It's taken almost 5 months to get to this point.)

She Who Dies With the Most Stuff....Dies

One of the difficult things I had to do in the past several months was finally deal with all my mother's things. While my dad was still living in their apartment I put it off, but we had to move my dad to an assisted living facility because of the complications he's having. Which meant that we had to empty the apartment. My dad took a few things with him, but the rest...My sisters were here and they were absolutely ruthless. We didn't have the time to pack up and deliver anything to a charity (the Salvation Army had said they would come and pick things up but then cancelled at the last minute) so that meant everything went into the dumpster. My mother wasn't a collector, quite the opposite, so the things she kept were things that she really wanted or used. All I could think as we made trip after trip to the dumpster was that these were the things that my mother had accumulated over her lifetime, that meant something to her, and in the end it was all so much garbage. Very sad, and not a comfortable thought. I keep thinking about all the things I have and love and wondering if they'll end up in a dumpster or sold for a fraction of what they're worth. I salvaged what I could, but still... Maybe it's because I'm a very visual person so seeing things makes me remember. It was like I was throwing away my memories. I tried to explain this to my sister who I could tell was exasperated by my unwillingness to get on with the job and throw everything out. "When I see this," I said, "it brings back my memories of Mom. I'm afraid I won't be able to remember her anymore once it's all gone." She didn't have any answer for me.

Knitting Now

Here's what I'm currently working on. I couldn't get the picture to show accurate color (that's what happens when you don't get home until 10 PM to take pictures of your knitting). I posed it on the skirt I'm knitting it to match and since its color is off as well you can see that it matches perfectly. The pattern is Bad Penny from the fabulous Knitty which is now my favorite knitting magazine. (Yay! It's a new issue!) I've modified and am not doing the YO increases and I will have add some shaping in the body (when the arms are big enough for me, I still need 3" for my bust, and I also want some waist shaping.) The yarn is CotLin from KnitPicks. I love this yarn. I'm already considering what other color I can make a summer sweater in and if it would be possible for me to finish two sweaters this summer (they have short sleeves -- that should make all the difference, right?) And I've also knit up something fun and summery in this yarn. Do those colors scream "Summer" or what? (It's a bit brighter IRL).